


Runalong

by Bakageta



Series: Runalong/Oneirophage [1]
Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Canon-Typical Body Horror, Car Accidents, Cryptids, Cultural Differences, Gen, Miscommunication, Other, cryptid venom symbiote, purposefully reckless behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22763878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bakageta/pseuds/Bakageta
Summary: You,Venom rasped quietly,ignored mmme for so long, incomplete, too solid to understand, lost in a hive of minds too dense to parse.They approached Eddie slowly, obvious in their movements like someone trying not to startle a half-tame cat.III thought your mind blocked, beyond reach.“So you yelled.”---Eddie had always thought the black creature that had run alongside his father’s car had been something he’d made up.
Relationships: Eddie Brock & Venom Symbiote, Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote
Series: Runalong/Oneirophage [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1636630
Comments: 36
Kudos: 298





	Runalong

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a piece of art by senkkei and the discussion that followed, all of which can be found [here](https://silenceia.tumblr.com/post/187516527257/crazy-pages-hollowedskin-lnicol1990).
> 
> A huge thanks to [sajastar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sajastar/pseuds/sajastar) for betaing, without them this fic would still be sitting on my drive.

As a child, before his mother and sister died, Eddie’s entire family would go twice a year on a massive road trip down the east coast from New York to his grandparent's house, just outside of Miami. Every Christmas and Fourth of July they would all bundle into his father’s car and undertake a twenty hour, twelve hundred mile journey over the course of two long days.

It’d always been worth the trip. Two days trapped in a car with his family followed by a week and three days of stomping around in his grandparent’s soggy backyard, catching tadpoles at the edge of the manmade neighborhood pond, and poking sticks into the murky water despite his mother warning him off. His dad always reassured her that any alligators were surely taken care of by animal control, why else would her parents pay so much in HOA fees? Eddie didn’t care either way so long as he still got to poke things with sticks and imagine he was in more danger than he really was.

And once he was a little bit older, old enough to clearly remember the ride, the trip wasn’t completely awful either. His parents bought him a cassette player of his own so he could listen to music and not be bothered by Mary, who had much less tolerance for long car trips even though she was two years older. Eddie also began to appreciate the landscape along Interstate 95, at least parts of it. The first bit in the north was good, all turns and curves through the hills and valleys, and the coast was nice as well once they got to it. He could look out and imagine all sorts of heroes and beasts and monsters having all sorts of adventures in the northern foothills and southern marshes. But for seven hours, from part way through Virginia until they got to Savannah, the interstate was nothing but straight lines, gradual curves, and shallow hills.

It was _so boring_ and Eddie couldn’t even sleep through it because the jostling movement of the car kept him awake.

The first time Eddie saw them was probably the second trip to Florida after he got his walkman.

They showed up out of nowhere maybe an hour into the boring nothingness that made up the middle third of the trip. There were four of them racing along the shoulder of the highway, each looking like some strange combination of horse and greyhound. Each was at least as big as a car, well muscled, and their furless hides each gleamed a different color in the afternoon sun. None of them had ears and all of them had long, thick tails.

The one in the lead was a gunmetal silver, its hide tough and almost craggy. It was the biggest of the four, and Eddie thought it might be the oldest, assuming they aged at all. The next two that followed were much leaner compared to the one in the lead and their bodies rippled wildly as they moved. One was a murky blue and the other a dirty yellow. They seemed almost playful, switching positions and jostling against one another as they ran, but they never came close to touching the one in the lead.

The last held Eddie’s eye. It was a deep void black and it ran with its mouth open, tongue hanging out of the corner where its jaw hinged too far back behind its pale, round eyes. It was mid-size compared to the other three and smooth in a way that the others weren’t.

They all kept pace with the car but the black one seemed like it was working harder, great steaming breaths billowing out of its mouth and into the chilly December air. Idly, Eddie wondered why. Perhaps the black one was recovering from illness? Or was the black one an outsider, not yet welcome in the group? Or maybe something else completely different?

Eddie watched them until the car reached Florence, a city in South Carolina that was slightly more than halfway to his grandparents. As the car pulled off of the interstate they disappeared into the trees lining the shoulder.

They showed up again the next day shortly after Eddie’s family got onto the interstate and stayed until they reached Savannah. The black one lingered after the others had left, skimming over the estuaries of the Georgia coast like they were solid ground.

_Don’t get left behind_ , Eddie thought.

And, as if it had heard him, the black one edged onto the highway’s shoulder and brought its head even with Eddie’s window. It was close enough that Eddie could see the pale drifting colors in its eye and feel its presence as its steps caused the window to shudder.

Eddie almost thought it looked concerned.

_I’ll be headed back this way_ , he thought to it, just in case it could hear. _Don’t worry, it’ll be a week and three days_.

The black one blinked at him solemnly before it peeled off and turned around, disappearing into the wetlands they were driving over.

For the first time Eddie spent more of the trip inside than he did outside in the balmy Florida winter. His granddad had just gotten a computer and internet and Eddie wanted to figure out what had run alongside the car on the interstate. 

He came up with basically nothing. They weren’t any kind of graveyard dog, or man-faced dog, or any other weird monster on the internet, and eventually Eddie gave up on figuring out them specifically. Instead he made up stories of his own for the black one. Eddie imagined they could be an alien, or a soldier, or some kind of guardian. They could show up and take him away on some adventure, like in the shows he watched and the stories he read. He got caught up on legends and folktales, copying the stories into a text document to read later when his mother needed to make a call and made him get off the internet.

Christmas and New Years came and went and for once Eddie looked forward to the car trip back home instead of just accepting it as a necessary return to his normal life. 

Eddie waited anxiously once they reached Savannah. Would they show up? Was the black one okay?

Once they made it past Savannah and into South Carolina, all four of them appeared alongside the car. The black one was still in the rear and still looking like it worked harder than the others to travel at their pace.

Like before, the silver, blue and yellow ones peeled away the next day when they reached more varied terrain. The black one stayed, lining its head up with Eddie’s window and looking directly at him.

_Half a year_ , Eddie thought to it, _we go back to Florida in July_.

This time it nodded once before disappearing.

They show up the next trip, and the one after that, and the one after that, again and again and again. Eddie kept making up stories for them, and he kept researching, and he kept not finding anything.

Whatever they were, they kept showing up year after year, even running in the median when Eddie was on the driver side instead of his usual passenger side like he was on the latest drive.

The silver one was the same as it ever was, racing steadily ahead of the other three. Yellow and blue, however, seemed antsy, like they were anticipating something. Instead of passing and nipping at each other they shouldered past each other, sometimes stretching their necks out and biting. Eddie was surprised they hadn’t drawn blood. The black one was last as always. It seemed reluctant, trailing even further behind than normal.

_Wonder what’s wrong_ , Eddie thought.

**_Stay out of the left lane_** , Eddie thought in response. At least it was almost his thought, just tinged a little black and whispering at the edges.

_What?_

**_Stay. Out. Of the Left. Lane._ ** The black shaded thought responded.

And Eddie tried, he really did, claiming illness and a full bladder, but his father was in a rush this time and had no sympathy.

**_Please_** , the black shaded thought tried again, **_stay out of the left lane. Please_**.

**_Interfering!_ ** A blue tinged thought cut into Eddie’s mind.

**_Trouble!_ ** Yellow crowed, followed by a yellow-silver susurrus of noise and image and taste and thought, **_will be mad!_ **

_Dad won’t listen_.

The black one snorted and tossed its head, suddenly putting on speed. It caught up with the car and tried to shoulder it out of the left lane.

Eddie’s dad cursed and struggled to control the car. He couldn’t see them; no one but Eddie was ever able to see them.

**_Move!_ ** Another black thought came as the black one rammed the car again.

“What the hell!” Eddie’s dad shouted.

**_Move!_ **

But before the black one could ram the car a third time, the silver one whirled around and grabbed the black one by its neck. 

**_CEASE!_ ** The thought was strong and loud and dark silver just like a bullet. It shattered Eddie’s thoughts and left him unable to do anything but watch what happened.

The silver one’s teeth dug in and mid stride they brought their hind legs up and kicked the black one into the median fence. They were nimble and it took just seconds for the silver one to recover its stride and leave the black one floundering behind them.

As the silver one recovered, Eddie heard the sounds of swerving cars, squealing tires, and indignant honks. He had just enough time to turn and watch as a panel van veered drunkenly into their lane. The driver was unconscious at the wheel and plowed into the passenger side of their car.

Eddie woke to the feeling of teeth in his shoulder and chest. It hurt. 

There was tugging, short and quick and repetitive, and everything hurt, hurt, hurt.

**_Sorry_ ** , something thought in Eddie’s head. **_Sorry, sorry, sorry_ **.

**_INTERFERENCE!_ ** Silver and painful and ricocheting around his skull. **_ATTACHMENT!_ ** **_YOU_ ** **_-_ ** a feeling of slow ruin, of lasting lingering death **_-TANGLED THE SKEIN AND_ ** **_YOU_ ** **_-_ ** a feeling of insidious failure, of course it was the trailing end, of course it was last in all things **_-ARE BOUND!_ **

The jaws around his chest and shoulder spasmed and a mournful, black thought cried out in Eddie’s head.

_It hurt._

The ground shook under the pounding of a dozen clawed feet as they raced away.

**_Sorry, sorry, sorry_** _ **,**_ someone thought.

They hurt.

He was on the ground now and it hurt. Rocks and pine needles dug into his back and it hurt.

Gently, someone lay their head on his chest, and it didn’t hurt even though it should. Instead he felt warm wet seep into his clothes and into his skin and into his self. There was a feeling of black string tying itself around something vital deep inside. 

It didn’t hurt.

Lightly, quietly, delicately someone licked the wounds they had left in Eddie’s chest and shoulder, their tongue ignoring the reality of his shirt.

They did not hurt.

**_III_** , the thought ground out, new and strange, **_III am... you are mine now. III am yours?_ **

**_Yes?_ ** It asked.

He didn’t hurt.

The string tightened. The black one sighed. Eddie passed out as he whispered something that might have been a name.

Eddie woke up in a hospital bed and found out that only he and his dad had survived. He found out that he’d been flung from the car and had somehow sustained minimal injuries. The driver of the truck had made it too. He’d fallen asleep struggling to meet demands. No one directly involved was truly at fault. It didn’t help to know that.

He was released from the hospital at the same time as his dad, who’d broken his left femur, shattered his right knee, and been concussed. Eddie was only bruised, and a strange series of puncture scars over the front and back of his left chest were the only lasting marks. 

Eddie grew up fast after that.

They only visited Florida one more time after the crash and they flew there for the first and only time. As always, the trip was nice, but this time the flight was awful. Eddie fought a panic attack the whole time, but at least he didn’t have to worry about seeing them again. About finding out if there was only the black one left, or if only the other three would appear.

He wasn’t sure which would have been worse.

Eddie finished high school and his dad didn’t give a shit. Then he graduated college with a bachelors in journalism, a 3.9 GPA, honors, and his dad didn’t bother to show up. Eddie got a job writing fluff for a semi-major paper and his father got arrested for drunk driving. When Eddie got a promotion his father drank himself into the hospital. Eddie met Anne, his life took off, and his father wallowed in self-pity and self-medication.

Those days Eddie was always restless, always fighting the urge to move, to seek out more. He tried to channel it into his articles, to give his stories that extra punch, and it worked for a time.

Until it didn’t.

When Eddie fucked up, pinned blame on the wrong man, his father made sure to tell him that he’d always known Eddie would ruin everything he ever touched.

Eddie ran to California with Anne and started over, the flight somehow numbing while still being terrifying beyond words. Still, the travel, the change of scenery and pace was good for a time. A new job ** _—_** this time on TV ** _—_** a new condo, and a new motorcycle. They got engaged. He still looked up stories about local legends in his spare time.

Everything went well until he fucked up again. He betrayed Anne. Anne left him. He moved out and spiraled into depression.

Six months later he met Anne’s new surgeon boyfriend outside their old condo. Then he poured the rest of his wallet into the gas tank of his scrambler and took off north on Highway One. Eddie figured he needed to think. He also figured that a lot of things could happen to a motorcyclist riding at night on a rain-slicked highway, even if he was wearing a helmet.

It took longer than he’d have liked to get out of the city, but once he was over the Golden Gate Bridge, not even past Sausalito, it felt like a vice around his chest had opened. Like a line pulled taut had started to loosen.

For the first time in months Eddie felt… not good but okay. He had always wanted to travel and he had always been too busy. It was frighteningly easy to forget about his troubles, to not worry or care whether his apartment would still be there when he got back, whether he would ever work in journalism again, whether he would ever see another genuine smile from a friendly face.

The night scenery was beautiful, and he was half reminded of the trips his family used to take, the first part when they would travel south through the northeastern foothills. It sparked an old grief, one that was too worn out to actually catch. The mourning snuffed out and Eddie was allowed to appreciate the world around him, half his mind on the road ahead of him and half on the open Pacific to his left.

He wondered if he could just start over again somewhere, if third chances were a thing that happened.

Probably not. He kept losing parts of his life each time: his job twice, his fiancé. He didn’t really want to find out what else he could lose. 

Two hours in, the rain had stopped and Eddie had all but lost himself in the road. It was a kind of zen he’d never felt before, the anxious wanderlust he’d felt ever since the crash finally indulged. All he could see was the road ahead and all he could hear was the pounding of his heart and the heaving of his breath inside his helmet. Eddie leaned into the speed of the scrambler, hunched over and aerodynamic, and decided that he’d rather go fast than be safe.

The traffic on Route One was almost nonexistent this late, and Eddie had the road to himself for the most part. The surface of the highway was oddly smooth and Eddie couldn’t help noticing the ease with which he sped along the coastal road. Even the most regular maintenance couldn’t keep up with the twin forces of tourism and the Pacific. Eddie could see the rough, puddled potholes that he expected, but tonight his tires flew over the bumps and potholes like they weren’t even there. Eddie put the strangeness out of his mind and tried to focus on the ride.

As he rode, Eddie’s heavy breathing seemed to increase in volume and his pounding heart was matched by pounding footsteps. He saw a shadow out of the corner of his eye through his helmet, somehow, and then the black one appeared next to him.

The years didn’t seem to have affected them at all. They were still strong and gleaming and black, though it was different riding next to them on a motorcycle instead of inside a car. They towered over him, size emphasized by the lack of barrier.

It seemed like they deferred to Eddie, always staying behind and to the side of him. Eddie watched them in his mirrors when they put themselves between him and the sea, when they vaulted effortlessly over obstacles and oncoming traffic. 

After a while Eddie stopped consciously noticing them, just assumed they’d be there. It was comfortable and nostalgic and he lost track of himself for a time. All there was was the road ahead of him and their presence behind him. What little traffic there was had disappeared, though Eddie took no notice of it, and his tires glided over the pavement like their claws cut through the air.

The road unfurled in front of them and, together, they dreamed.

It is part of a shared-mind, the trailing end, not individual enough to lead and not new enough to be treasured. It has its place, though. It excels at seeking, as it always has, finding the most delectable thoughts to present to the lead. Sometimes it even gets to have some of the choicest, most novel parts when the thought it finds is so unusual and grand that even the new ones cannot eat it all. Life is easy and the shared-mind is content with its sure knowledge that life will continue to be so.

The cycles turn as they always have and the shared-mind hunts as it always has. It stays in the trees near the cut-trails and beaten-paths chasing after the thoughts of walking solid-minds. This is how the shared-mind lives until the trailing end realizes that there are many more solid-minds racing along the open-roads that now slice through the forest. Even better, it realizes that these solid-minds are thinking _so many_ thoughts as they speed by. Planning, anticipating, and something it’s never seen before.

It is almost like the thoughts that the walking solid-minds have when they settle into true rest, except the thoughts tell stories with beginnings and middles and sometimes even ends. They are not just replayed memories flashing with errors and nonsense. They are the idle thoughts of research projects, essays, novels, plans, and much more besides, and the trailing end catches glimpses of them all.

None of them linger enough for more than the smallest bite, but there are so many that it takes its fill. By the time it is done feeding, the trailing end is almost too large to move through the trees, so it calls the rest of its shared-mind. The two young ones come first, pale and undifferentiated, and they brush and scrape up against it pulling bits of its newly gotten size into their own shapes. The leading edge finds them while the new ones are taking from it. It forms a mouth of silvered teeth and bites, just barely missing the new ones.

All of the shared-mind merges then, distributing thought-nourishment amongst its parts, and a decision is made to hunt the open-roads exclusively.

And so time passes.

Four parts of a mind gain size and speed until each is large and fast enough to keep pace with the solid-minds. It is easy running, easier hunting, and the path is so predictable that the shared-mind does not bother looking ahead to see when and where the solid-minds will go. The young one’s presence lengthens until they are each part of a mind able to look back on itself and see its own facets. They shade themselves in the colors of the sky that the shared-mind now runs underneath.

The shared-mind also learns. It is not the only of its kind to learn to travel the open-roads; there are others in infinite shapes, still made of the same inbetween-travelling-stuff. It learns that the solid-minds are ‘humans’ riding ‘cars’ on an ‘interstate’, and the humans are all travelling somewhere. To work, home, shopping, vacation, and to visit relatives. All are concepts the shared-mind is unfamiliar with until the trailing end latches onto a human that sees them.

This was not the first time: in the forest they had been seen occasionally as darting shadows and peripheral movement. But this human, this one sees the shared-mind clearly and it thinks and imagines and dreams about _it_. About the trailing end _specifically_. It is amazing, the trailing end thinks, and the human’s thoughts are so much more potent than any others they’ve had. 

It learns so much.

The human _sends_ thoughts to it as well, to tell the trailing end of its comings and goings. The trailing end plucks meaning from the human’s mind. The human and its family ** _—_** another new word, perhaps another way of referring to a shared-mind? It doesn’t quite think that’s correct ** _—_** make their trip regularly and the shared-mind follows.

All goes well until the trailing end looks ahead and sees the human’s end.

The trailing end becomes frantic. It has grown attached to the dreaming-thinking-wondering human. It doesn’t want to lose that bright, winding mind. Not just for the quality of sustenance, which might have been forgivable, but for the stories that the human tells about it. The stories that make it feel as if it could be something more.

There will be consequences, it knows, but it cannot watch as the bright-mind’s thoughts cease.

For the first time the shared-mind works against itself. The trailing end tries to rearrange the threads, tries to speak to the human, forces physicality fully upon itself and tries to shove. Nothing works and the leading edge rips its solidness away from the shared-mind. The trailing end looks back upon itself as the length of its age crinkles and snaps and it is born anew tumbling on the ground.

It recovers its feet, standing just in time to hear the wrenching sounds of metal and pain and death and the ceasing of thought.

Staggering on too-real legs, it reaches the car holding the bright-minded human. The glass windows are crazed and broken just like the remains of its bond to the shared-mind, and it only needs the barest of strength to push through and grab the bright-mind’s body. Teeth, many and pointed back towards its throat to better catch thoughts as they drift through the air, slide easily into flesh and it knows that they hurt.

It is a desperate strength that the trailing end uses to save the bright-minded human, strength it can barely afford to spend as it bleeds out of its broken bond and pours into its dying human and burns to move away from the shell of the car. The bright-mind hurts and all it can do is apologize.

The leading edge takes pity on it, names it even as it condemns what was once the trailing end.

**_INTERFERENCE!_ ** It announces so that all can hear and all will know. **_ATTACHMENT!_ ** **_YOU_ ** **_WHO WOULD CAUSE RUIN, WHO WOULD KILL THIS MIND SLOWLY, TANGLED THE SKEIN AND_ ** **_YOU_ ** **_WHO WERE LAST IN ALL THINGS ARE BOUND!_ **

The break is cauterized, but not soon enough. It is fading, hurting even as the leading edge whispers its new name into its new half real skull.

**_venom_ **

Venom which is produced by low creatures too weak to kill with strength and claw, which causes only pain and suffering and death, which sneaks and drags and melts and ruins.

Later, after its existence is secured, Venom will think the name accurate from the leading edge’s perspective, but now all it feels is pain and suffering and hurt.

**_Sorry, sorry, sorry_ **, it apologizes, even as it hurts. Even as it hurts the bright-minded human.

It hurts.

They’re far enough away now and it does the only thing it can. The bright mind is tantalizingly close to the surface of the mind’s weakened body and it could eat but it won’t. Venom ties the beginnings of itself to the bright-mind ** _—_** ties itself to _Eddie_.

The hurt fades as the bond sets. Eddie belongs to it now; no other will dare approach a human with such a binding. No other would feast on Eddie’s thoughts and dreams.

On impulse, it licks its tongue directly across the wounds its teeth have caused in Eddie’s body. The punctures seal and then it speaks.

**_III—_ ** Individuality is grating, grinding against its being. But individuality is all it has, despite its one sided binding, and it will endure what it must. **_III am— you are mine now. III am yours?_ **

Hopefully Eddie will take it. Then it could be truly a part of that bright mind and everything would shine with a new light and be beautiful and simple like before the leading edge broke it away from the shared-mind.

**_Yes?_ ** It asks, but Eddie’s bright mind dims now that the hurt is gone.

A sigh of air escapes its half real lungs and it settles for tying its new name into Eddie as his thoughts quiet.

“Venom.” Eddie whispers their name as other humans carry him away.

He came back to himself just in time for the black one to start forcing him off the road.

“The hell are you ** _—_** ” They cut him off with a memory: the dread of humans not listening, the feel of their side slammed against a car, the fear of loss.

So Eddie slowed and pulled off at the start of Salt Point State Park, onto the beginning of a barred-off dirt forestry road. Before he had time to say anything, a sports car drifted wildly around the curve of the road ahead and into the lane Eddie had been in moments earlier. 

“Oh.” Eddie said with all the eloquence of someone realizing how close to death they’d just come. “Okay. That’s what the hell you were doing.”

Now that he wasn’t on the road, the strange zone he’d fallen into had dissipated. The four legged beast beside him--Venom, he recalled from their memory--seemed less like a fondly remembered cryptid from his youth and more like some eldritch creature become horribly real. Everything that had been fine from a distance was now just off enough to tighten all the muscles along Eddie’s spine. 

Up close he could clearly see the black sinew of their… of Venom’s muscles veined through with white. Their eyes were perfect, unnatural circles and somehow he knew that they were locked on him even without any way to tell their line of sight. The jagged crease of their mouth extended way too far past their eyes. And that’s just what Eddie could tell for sure. There was something undefinable that just wasn’t _right_ , but even as tense as he was Eddie didn’t want to run away like he probably should have.

He felt… not safety, but a sort of companionship.

**_FOLLOW_**. Echoed loudly in Eddie’s mind, completely unlike how he remembered them communicating. It felt almost like a spike being driven into his skull, like a cord pulled tight around his lungs. It hurt and all Eddie could do was curl up on the ground and clutch at the helmet covering his head.

Venom flinched, audibly when their bulk jerked against the underbrush.

They didn’t mean to hurt him. Eddie _knew_ this even if he didn’t know _how_ he knew.

“Why?” Eddie breathed.

**_You_** , they rasped quietly, **_ignored mme for so long, incomplete, too solid to understand, lost in a hive of minds too dense to parse_**.

They approached slowly, obvious in their movements like someone trying not to startle a half-tame cat. **_II thought your mind blocked, beyond reach_**.

“So you yelled.” His head was pounding and uneven and he couldn't move.

**_Yes_**. They extended their head down to Eddie where he’d laid himself on the ground. Somehow Eddie could feel their snuffling breath against his forehead through the polycarbonate of his helmet. They licked across his nose and forehead and the pain disappeared instantly. Something that Eddie should not have been aware of relaxed and he stretched out flat on his back on the forestry road, grateful for the leather jacket that kept the cold of the ground at bay.

Eddie flipped the visor of his helmet completely open, Venom shied away before it could pass through their nose, and the air he breathed in was brisk and clean and real. The stars were peeking out from behind clouds darkened by night, and the sky was clear in a way it never was in San Francisco. Everything that had gone wrong in his life was still distant and unimportant compared to whatever was happening now post-near-death-experience with a childhood cryptid standing nearby. He felt kind of empty, but not in a negative way like he usually would, like he had felt for months now.

He felt like he was at a crossroads. Like he could drop everything and leave San Francisco and his shitty apartment, his black-listed name, and Anne with her perfect new surgeon boyfriend. Instead of struggling through the rest of his miserable existence, however long that might be, Eddie could leave and never return.

Idly, he wondered why he hadn’t thought of that, and, idly, Eddie decided that it didn’t really matter that he hadn’t thought of it before because he had thought of it now.

It didn’t matter that he had no ties to anyone, that his job is gone, that his fiance had left him, that he was about to be evicted. The metaphorical road was wide open ahead of him and the only thing that held Eddie back was himself.

He could ** _—_** **_Follow?_ ** The thought intruded, **_III fixed the tension; will you follow?_ **

Venom’s great head blocked out the sky. Their blank eyes met Eddie’s own.

“You know what? Sure.” Eddie agreed as he heaved himself to his feet. “Fuck it, why not. Just lemme hide my bike.” If he could get it past the barricade, Eddie could probably take it a few hundred feet away from the highway and stick it in some bushes or something.

**_Not a problem_**. Venom gripped the scrambler in their giant mouth, their jaw seeming to flex around it for the best possible grip.

The sense of unease Eddie got as he watched Venom bend their flesh to pick up the entire motorcycle was the same as the one a person would get looking at a broken leg and noticing the uncomfortable bend at the fracture site.

That unease stayed as he watched them carry the scrambler a few hundred feet up the dirt road and, with unimaginable delicacy, place it in a shallow dip in the landscape amongst some bushes. It was almost exactly where Eddie’d been thinking of hiding it. From his position at the road, the bike was basically invisible.

**_Follow?_ ** They prompted, jaws closed and straight once more.

“Oh-okay,” Eddie agreed again after a brief full body shiver. “Yeah, sure. Lead on.”

**_Then follow_**. They turned and continued up the road with a sense of grinning, pointed teeth.

Together they traveled almost a mile up the dirt road until it widened into a gravel turn-around. It was edged in railway ties. The forest beyond the ties was peaceful and alive with the sounds of birds and small animals that didn’t give a shit about whatever kind of horror Venom was. There were cool breezes filtering through the leaves and the humidity in the air was just enough to be comfortable to breathe. 

“Have we gone far enough?” Eddie asked as he wandered over to the edge of the turn-around.

(There was a thin black wondering, questioning, wanting echo of **_we?_ ** that went unacknowledged by both of them.)

**_Yes. We have._ ** Venom said after a moment, their tongue lapping out to taste the air a few dozen paces away from him. **_Ours._ **

“Ours?” It was a request; Eddie knew that in the same way he had known Venom hadn’t meant to hurt him. It was an invitation to join Venom. Another chance at another life.

Eddie had no reason not to accept their offer. Hell, he had meant to drive until he couldn’t. Maybe until he ran off the highway, maybe until he was hit like he had been all those years ago, or maybe just until he ran out of gas, becoming stranded in the wilderness, and dying of exposure. He wasn’t exactly sure, hadn’t exactly put much thought into the how. Eddie had just given into the urge to run, to get away, to go until he couldn’t anymore.

**_Yes. Yours, mmmine._ ** They approached and pressed their great head through Eddie’s leather jacket and against his chest. The force of their breath rumbled in Eddie’s lungs. **_Ours._ **

“That simple, huh?” It felt almost like they were trying to press their head into his torso, but he was real to Venom in a way his clothing wasn’t. Eddie had to lean into their head to keep from being slowly knocked over. “What about when I fuck it up?”

Venom went still and Eddie felt like something wrapped around his aorta was tugging in his chest.

**_Impossible. We would be joined._ ** They trusted him. Eddie could feel it, they were making sure he could feel it. They trusted him probably too much, Eddie thought.

**_Not too much. III see you. You are mmine. III can give to you._ ** And here they made Eddie remember their longing, the cycles between gorging on his dreams and thoughts. He felt like he couldn't breathe. They made him feel their disappointment as they approached the seas and the dread as they approached the mountains. His chest was weighed down. The clean, slick, satiated joy as they ran alongside Eddie who was young and unknowing, who was growing and learning, who was far and fast and fearful, who was broken. Eddie, who was with them but also without them, was shown himself overwhelmed. His still chest was filled with their want and their need and then he heaved a breath through the unintended pressure.

“Shit!” Eddie sucked air and, when he felt he couldn’t get enough, ripped his helmet off and launched it into the ground where it bounced over the railway ties, into the undergrowth, and out of sight.

**_III can take from you._ ** There was a deep pulling sensation and Eddie suddenly remembered eating ice cream sandwiches with his grandparents, feeling loved and content. He remembered his promotion in New York, flushed with pride in his new position and the award his writing had won. Eddie remembered moving into the townhouse with Anne, love and new hope nestled in his chest. 

**_III know you._ ** Venom shuffled through his memories, and took them, not away, but into themself. They looked and inspected and placed them back in his brain, right where they were supposed to be.

Before he could pull away, Eddie’s legs locked at the knee and leaned him against Venom’s head. His arms crept forward, trembling and stiff like they hadn’t moved in days, and his hands grasped the curve of Venom’s jaw and pulled their head into his chest. Eddie could feel their teeth against his forearms.

_STOP._ He shouted in his head because he couldn't reach his voice. _PLEASE STOP_.

They ripped their head out of his hands, and retreated to the far side of the clearing as if they’d been struck. Guilt, fear, and regret pulsed through Eddie’s mind until something slammed shut. He was left aching, his body numb and tingling as if his circulation had been cut off everywhere then suddenly returned.

“Too much.” Eddie was bent over, panting, braced against his own knees and only technically still upright. Venom had retreated across from him, seeming to shrink into themselves.

Eddie caught his breath, sat down on the gravel, and wondered at the static feeling of being alone in his head. He’d only been consciously aware of Venom’s presence in his mind for an hour or so, but now that they’d shut themself away he was lonely in his own head. It should have worried Eddie, how much he wanted Venom back, how strong the unreasoning, gut-level trust he had for them was.

Venom trusted him too, Eddie thought, even more than he trusted them, but it made sense with how long they’ve been following him. And they want _him_ specifically to join them, whatever that entailed. It made him curious. He knew it was another stupid gut reaction, but now that there was the slightest bit of distance Eddie didn’t believe that Venom had meant to cause any harm. They were just so different from each other; of course there were misunderstandings.

And with that notion he thought about what they’d shown him on the road. How Venom must have never been alone before they’d been broken off from their pack? Collective? _Self_? How whatever they were was so very not human, presumably had a culture far removed from anything Eddie could hope to know.

Eventually the connection between Venom and Eddie started flickering open again like they couldn’t help themselves. Brief staccato bursts of guilt and possessiveness and confusion and fear and loneliness and desire. If they were a dog they would whine, but they weren’t so instead, crouched low and stiff and still, they stared at everything but Eddie.

“Why?” 

For the first time since they’d leapt away, Venom’s eyes locked onto Eddie’s and he felt the shape of a question pressing into his thoughts.

**_Wanted to show you what IIII have, what you could have._ ** Their thought slunk into Eddie’s mind cautiously. **_Too much, did not know, did not intend… You are so singular, so small…_ **

“Why me?” Eddie asked as he felt Venom sliding away again.

They halted immediately.

**_III… You are…_ ** Venom struggled to articulate what Eddie thought must be a basic tenet of their existence. **_III broke away from the shared-mind for you, nearly ceased for you, could not let you cease._ **

**_You are mmine. Without you my existence is lessened._ **

It was something so simple that it was huge.

As low as he’d sunk, as much as he’d given up, there had been a being that cared. Even though he’d never spoken to them before today. Even though his father drank himself to death rather than deal with him, and even though he’d lost his entire career, and even though Annie had left him for a man so much better than him, Eddie mattered to someone. Even if that someone was a childhood cryptid whose existence Eddie hadn’t been sure of until hours ago, he mattered.

Eddie was back at that crossroads again, only this time he felt like he could pick a path. 

“Alright.” Eddie parted the silence in the turn-around, standing up and dusting himself off. “Fuck it, might as well.”

**_Yes?_ **

“Yeah.”

Venom crossed the clearing before the agreement fully left Eddie’s mouth.

“So, how does this go?”

**_Like this._ ** They brought their head against Eddie’s chest again, their will tingling through his arms but this time it was Eddie who brought his hands up to their jaw. He was tense but there was a sort of hopeful trust in him.

**_Follow._ ** They pressed into Eddie’s mind as they pressed into his chest even as an answering flicker of hope passed between them.

_How?_ Eddie found that once again he couldn’t speak but it wasn’t as overwhelming this time when Venom’s grasp was less desperate and he was half expecting it.

**_Like this,_ ** they repeated, and Venom pulled him down into their self.

It was like being pulled into molasses, dark and warm and thick. Eddie couldn’t breathe but he didn’t need to now. There was no burning hunger in his chest, no desperate drive to inhale whatever it was that surrounded him. 

He drifted for awhile, eyes shut and mind peaceful, until he felt a presence.

Eddie’s eyes opened to a warm black field of nothing. But it was the kind of nothing you see when you’re too close to someone to see anything. It was Venom, Eddie realized, that he was too close to see. He was in them somehow, either literally or metaphorically, he wasn’t sure.

A tug at Eddie’s chest drew his attention. His eyes focused and somehow he could see that a cord of the black void around him was buried in his sternum. Something shifted, and Eddie was able to bring his arms up. 

_This is you_. Eddie said, tracing his fingers around the darkness where it entered his chest.

**“Where III tied mmyself to you.”** Their voice around him was solid, outside of his head for the first time.

_And I need to do the same._ It wasn’t a question, as soon as the thought formed Eddie knew. Wherever they were now was more real than the highway he had been riding along an hour ago, even though there was no way it could be an actual place. This place was somewhere that intentions and actions had power. 

When Eddie reached into his chest, he didn’t move with his muscles or with his mind but with his will. He wanted to pull out whatever equivalent he had to the darkness that Venom had tied to him, so he did. And when he spooled and wound the bright shifting thread of himself along Venom’s black cord, Eddie found the cord’s beginning and pressed his thread into them. 

Deft with intent and strong with action, Eddie tied himself to Venom.

Something within him shifted and locked into place.

They inhale and open their eyes.

They are no longer out of step with the world; instead they feel like they have come home. 

They remember when Eddie had returned to his tiny New York apartment after his father had been hospitalized yet again. He hadn’t left much at his father’s place, mainly paperwork, but what was there was needed. It was easier for both of them if Eddie recovered it while Carl was detoxing. His old house had been familiar. His old room quaint and comfortable. But it hadn’t been his home. His home was in the apartment he shared with two classmates on the opposite side of the campus from his father’s place.

They swallow the bittersweet memory down. It’s not as nourishing as it would have once been ** _—_** they’re all but eating a part of themselves now ** _—_** but the flavor is new. Half of them has never tasted a thought before and the rest of them enjoys the impressions that half feels as that first burst of metaphorical flavor rolls across their tongue.

They stand upright now, the stance new and familiar, and their new height is the same as it was when half of them stood on four legs. They admire their new hands and their new claws, and they revel in the shift of their changed shape as they turn back towards the road. Their body flows. As real as they are now, they are also just as insubstantial, and they could become anything they wanted with just a thought. They could do anything.

_A crossroads_ , part of them murmurs, different and almost overwhelmed.

The other part of them agrees, and they hesitate. They are changed and new. There is nothing holding them back, nothing they cannot do, and the prospect is nearly too much.

**“Where do we go?”** They ask, their voice masculine and rumbling deep in their chest.

_Back to the highway_ , part of them decides. _We know it. It’s safe._

So they head out. Take their time. They get used to walking on two legs after so long walking on four, and they wonder how it must feel to run on four when they have only ever run on two. They muffle themselves to keep from being drowned out by the forest around them while at the same time they wonder at how much more their senses are now compared to what they were. They see the world from a new angle and bask in the rightness of it all, the wholeness.

Eventually they settle. They drift into and away from each other just a little, and Eddie emerged onto the forestry road.

Eddie could feel Venom inside him: a feeling shifting around his body and a quiet presence in the back of his mind. It was an odd feeling, but not scary. He didn’t feel tense anymore; there wasn’t a sense of something being subtly off. It was because they were bound together, Eddie knew.

The walk back was calm and peaceful, and the feeling of an impending decision pressed down on them more and more.

"What should we do?" Eddie asked.

**_Anything we want,_ ** they responded easily.

"But what is that?"

Silence as they continued down the road. Venom nudged at Eddie's memory, seeking permission this time, and he gave it to them wordlessly. As they sifted through his experiences, Eddie thought seriously about the future for the first time in months.

They could go back to San Francisco. Eddie still had a place there, if not a very good one. He had Mrs. Chen, and Jack at the bar, and whatever contacts would still talk to him. They could make something of themselves there, he thought. But even before Venom’s disdain of crowding and confinement and stagnation bubbled up in his guts, Eddie knew it wasn’t really a viable option. Not if he wanted them to be happy.

So, that meant they’d travel like Eddie had always wanted to and Venom always had. Something bound up tight in Eddie’s chest relaxed at the thought. It wasn’t Venom; they’d rested along his back and in his legs, keeping exhaustion at bay.

“I’d thought about just going north.” Not very seriously, but still it had been there. Go north. Disappear into the mountains. Maybe run off a cliff. 

He didn’t want that last part now. They were bonded and were both suddenly content.

**_North is good. Mountains. Trees._ ** They thought of jumping from branch to branch, clawing their way up cliffsides, pushing their way upstream to the myriad cool springs that form rivers.

Eddie brought forth memories of biking up to Sequoia with Anne, the one and only time she had rode with him any further than across the city, the tires gripping the road with ease, wind buffeting against them, and the way he had finally been able to relax. They’d stayed in a cabin and the quiet and seclusion had been wonderful up until it had driven him out of his own head.

**_There is also east. Desert. Plains_**. There was the possibility of spending biting cold nights running on cracked earth under starry skies and baking hot days lounging on dunes in the bright sun. Miles of open nothingness which held their own sort of power, the kind that Venom, a creature of forest and roads and travel, could barely begin to grasp. 

Eddie caught the mixed apprehension and curiosity they felt.

“You didn’t go through the desert to get here?”

**_No, I could not. I came with you._ ** The singular didn’t grind at them now. They were one now and so they must have once been separate. **_But now we are solid and flexible and real. As much you as we are me._ **

“And because of that, we can do anything.” It wasn’t really a question, Eddie could feel the well of potential at their core. They were still changing, adjusting to each other, learning who they were.

“Let’s go back to the bike.” Eddie decided finally.

**_Why? We do not need it._ ** They were not against the bike as a concept. It had been good running alongside Eddie on it before they were them. But now they were together and so much more than they had been. Why would they deny themselves the lovely burn and push-pull of muscles made solid and real enough to have true sensation? Or the delightful glide of insubstantial feet along power lines with electricity pulsing underneath them?

“Yeah, we don’t need it.” Eddie agreed with a light smile on his face. They were going to run together eventually, but he wanted to show Venom how he ran before them. “We’ll like it, though, trust me.”

**_Fine._ ** They grumbled, wrapping around their head in the shape of a helmet much better than Eddie’s could have ever been.

…

…

…

**“This** **_is_ ** **good, Eddie.”** A small, real voice whispered into Eddie’s ear ten minutes later as they cleared Salt Point State Park.

“Told you.” Eddie said, and they both grinned, pointed teeth behind human lips, as he revved the scrambler’s engine and they leaned into every bit of speed it could offer.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This is my self-indulgent baby, so I'm glad you took the time to read it! I'm on [tumblr](https://bakageta.tumblr.com/), so feel free to come say hey.
> 
> If you're curious, [this](https://www.google.com/maps/@38.558972,-123.3101515,3a,60y,14.27h,85.38t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s4DlIRD_TVb8IUJdyOy2D6g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192) is what I assume is a forestry road at the curve in the highway near the beginning of Salt Point State Park.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated!


End file.
